Ava is a 13-year-old girl on a seaside vacation with her family when she learns that her retinitis pigmentosa, a rare condition, is progressing quickly and that she will thus lose her sight earlier than expected. In an effort to make this the best summer ever, Ava's mother acts as if nothing has happened while Ava embraces the last flings of summer romance and the darkness that will soon engulf her.

Sensual, evocative and ephemeral, Ava is a stunning visual meditation on youth, female sexuality and the nature of sight itself. Léa Mysius' first feature premiered at Cannes' Semaine de la Critique; Stockholm, where it won Best Cinematography; and Montréal, where it won Best Film.

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Press

"Confidently enigmatic... Mysius' startlingly assured, exquisitely shot Ava is a film that doesn't simply explore the textural possibilities of 35mm film for the hell of it, it makes thematic use of them, to stunning, evocative effect. DP Paul Guilhaume (who is also the co-screenwriter; an unusual pairing of functions that makes sense given the visual nature of the storytelling in a story about vision) creates images of a peculiar richness in which the colors are saturated but the lens seems progressively more stopped-down so that even the brightest sunlight can feel portentous"

"Sensual, accomplished"

"This is a film about a girl who is not yet blind but getting there, not yet a woman but getting there, too. She is losing her ability to see just at the moment she is becoming sexually visible to the world, and the film is an exploration of how these two identities interact"

"Impressive... Léa Mysius' invigorating debut uses the onset of blindness both as a source of genuine drama and as a conduit for the broader theme of growing up"

"[This] debut feature is as assured as they come— a heady, often surreal and sometimes disturbing exploration of adolescence, delinquency and burgeoning sexuality... a powerful and authentic depiction of a vital moment in a young woman’s life"